page_title: Kingdom of Greece
section_title: Naval operations in the Aegean and Ionian seas
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Greece / History / Balkan Wars / Naval operations in the Aegean and Ionian seas
caption_attribution_description: English: Torpedo boat Nikopolis of the Royal Hellenic Navy sailing in the Saronic Gulf in 1913. Formerly Antalya of the Ottoman Navy, built by Ansaldo in 1906. Scuttled by her Ottoman crew in Amvrakikos Gulf in 1912, refloated and used by the RHN until 1919.
context_page_description: The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 at the Convention of London by the Great Powers. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where it also secured full independence from the Ottoman Empire. This event also marked the birth of the first fully independent Greek state since the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in the mid-15th century.
  The Kingdom succeeded from the Greek provisional governments after the Greek War of Independence, and lasted until 1924. In 1924 the monarchy was abolished, and the Second Hellenic Republic was established, after Greece's defeat by Turkey in the Asia Minor Campaign. It lasted until 1935, when it was overthrown by a military coup d'état which restored the monarchy. The restored Kingdom of Greece lasted from 1935 to 1973. The Kingdom was again dissolved in the aftermath of the seven-year military dictatorship, and the Third Republic, the current Greek state, came to be, after a popular referendum.
context_section_description: On the outbreak of hostilities on 18 October, the Greek fleet, placed under the newly promoted Rear Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, sailed for the island of Lemnos, occupying it three days later (although fighting continued on the island until 27 October) and establishing an anchorage at Moudros Bay. This move was of major strategic importance, as it provided the Greeks with a forward base in close distance to the Dardanelles, the Ottoman fleet's main anchorage and refuge. In view of the Ottoman fleet's superiority in speed and broadside weight, the Greek planners expected it to sortie from the straits early in the war. Given the Greek fleet's unpreparedness resulting from the premature outbreak of the war, such an early Ottoman attack might well have been able to achieve a crucial victory. Instead, the Ottoman Navy spent the first two months of the war in operations against the Bulgarians in the Black Sea, giving the Greeks valuable time to complete their preparations and allowing them to consolidate their control of the Aegean.
  By mid-November Greek naval detachments had seized the islands of Imbros, Thasos, Agios Efstratios, Samothrace, Psara and Ikaria, while landings were undertaken on the larger islands of Lesbos and Chios only on 21 and 27 November respectively. Substantial Ottoman garrisons were present on the latter, and their resistance was fierce. They withdrew into the mountainous interior and were not subdued until 22 December and 3 January respectively. Samos, officially an autonomous principality, was not attacked until 13 March 1913, out of a desire not to upset the Italians in the nearby Dodecanese. The clashes there were short-lived as the Ottoman forces withdrew to the Anatolian mainland so that the island was securely in Greek hands by 16 March.
  At the same time, with the aid of numerous merchant ships converted to auxiliary cruisers, a loose naval blockade on the Ottoman coasts from the Dardanelles to Suez was instituted, which disrupted the Ottomans' flow of supplies (only the Black Sea routes to Romania remained open) and left some 250,000 Ottoman troops immobilized in Asia. In the Ionian Sea, the Greek fleet operated without opposition, ferrying supplies for the army units in the Epirus front. Furthermore, the Greeks bombarded and then blockaded the port of Vlorë in Albania on 3 December, and Durrës on 27 February. A naval blockade extending from the pre-war Greek border to Vlorë was also instituted on 3 December, isolating the newly established Provisional Government of Albania based there from any outside support.
  Lieutenant Nikolaos Votsis scored a major success for Greek morale on 31 October: he sailed his torpedo boat No. 11, under the cover of night, into the harbor of Thessaloniki, sank the old Ottoman ironclad battleship Feth-i Bülend and escaped unharmed. On the same day, Greek troops of the Epirus Army seized the Ottoman naval base of Preveza. The Ottomans scuttled the four ships present there, but the Greeks were able to salvage the Italian-built torpedo-boats Antalya and Tokat, which were commissioned into the Greek Navy as Nikopolis and Tatoi respectively. On 9 November, the wooden Ottoman armed steamer Trabzon was intercepted and sunk by the Greek torpedo boat No. 14 under Lt. Periklis Argyropoulos off Ayvalık.
caption: The torpedo boat Nikopolis, former Ottoman Antalya, captured at Preveza by the Greeks
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